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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: July 17th, 2023

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  • I don’t know whether it is ‘the best’ but one that I find springs to mind quite often is a moment with a new Christmas present once. It was one of those walk-along-then-spin-and-shoot robots - a very simple thing, since this was in the early '70s. However, my memory is of utter joy and entrancement as I set it going then leapt out of the way, on to the furniture, before it opened its chest and fired.

    It must have been a present from my parents, so they were probably happy that I liked it. Whether they were quite so happy after the first hour or two of the same thing, I don’t know.






  • The 1983 UK general election.

    However, since I lived in a Tory safe seat (taking boundary changes into account, the last time that location had been anything except tory was a Whig in the C19th) I spoiled my ballot - writing some pithy comment across it about how meaningless the process was. That showed them!

    Checking now, I see that it has continued as a Tory safe seat up to the present day.



  • I work for a national charity in the UK. The organisation’s policies have been dragged into the culture wars, but have not succumbed so far.

    My role isn’t directly involved with that side of things though. When planning, I am considering things like potential future supply chain issues, security of/access to services, potential threats, likely changes in resource use, likely changes to legislation and so on, all of which can be affected by national and international politics but, day-to-day, politics doesn’t have a great effect beyond those.


  • During WWII, my dad was posted to guard a munitions factory in Worcester. Mum worked in that factory. Evidently dad was initially interested in one of mum’s friends, but they hit it off shortly afterwards.

    After they married, dad brought her back to a smallholding in rural East Anglia, where he lived with his parents and three siblings. They apparently thought that mum’s Worcester accent was Welsh.


  • No, nothing like that really. Sure, my body was running on serotonin after a while so I was probably unduly relaxed and positive, but nothing like hallucinations or anything. When I found that that the no-sleep record was only 3 days longer than I had gone, I was a bit surprised, since it hadn’t really seemed that hard so far, but I am sure that I would have experienced something more serious before long.


  • No. I had nothing much going on for a while and just randomly decided to see what it would be like. Yes, it was ‘unusual’, but ‘unusual’ has been quite common for me over the years one way or another.

    It was some time after this that I discovered what the record for not sleeping was at the time (around 10 days as I recall). It is probably just as well that I did not know that at the time, or I would have tried to beat it - not that I was being supervised or anything, so it wouldn’t have counted, but…


  • When I was around 16 or so I decided not to sleep or eat for a week, which I did - so it would be that.

    I was fine, overall, but did get some leg cramps when I cycled 12 miles on the last day. I had no great desire to eat at the end - that had faded over the week, really, but it came back pretty soon once I did actually get something down.

    Of course, it is a very different thing if you decide not to eat, and have no particular stresses or anything going on to being deprived of food.



  • I have no great desire to be remembered. It is neither here nor there from my point of view. As to how people are likely to remember me, ‘quiet’ and ‘intelligent’ are two words that crop up a lot from people who I interact with casually or occasionally. Those who know be better would probably focus on my environmental and conservation work etc.

    Related to that, due to the role that I played in stopping an area being sold for development and instead becoming designated as a nature reserve on one occasion, there is a meadow that is casually called after me by some people that I worked with. I suppose that I would be happy to be remembered as a meadow.